Broder's a dork.
It would be much simpler to have a tax cut
that automatically expires in five years,
well within the horizon where present
surplus projections could accommodate
a tax cut.
Tuning the fiscal system to be more
counter-cyclical is more of a project.
I wish some worthy macroeconomist would
devote him/herself to this.
mbs
why worry about "surpluses that dont pan out"? who cares about ten years
down
the road now? of course they wont pan out when the economy goes into
recession,
incomes fall and tax revenues fall. the question is whether the surpluses
will
disappear from "automatic stabilizers", i.e. due to rising unemployment,
decreased T and increased G in the form of direct and indirect costs of
unemployment, or whether they disappear from proactive policy measures that
increase G and decrease T intentionally by fiscal policy.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Devine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 6:28 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:7685] here's an economic proposal
here's an economic proposal, reprinted from SLATE:
>A NY [Times] op-ed plumps for an idea favorably discussed by the WP's
>David Broder in his column yesterday, and now apparently making the policy
>rounds in Washington: Instead of a tax cut programmed over the coming
>decade based on guesses about future budget surpluses, how about returning
>a portion of each year's actual surplus to taxpayers in the form of a
>rebate check? The key advantage: when the surpluses don't pan out, the
>government isn't committed to giving away money it turns out not to have.
>The Times piece suggests that this year's check could and should total
>$500 per permanent resident, so that a family of four would get $2,000.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
